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The logic of fairy tales was that there was no logic: bad things happened to the innocent, children were set out in the woods by their parents, fear walked hand in hand with experience, a wish spoke aloud could make it so.I wept while reading the final chapter. Our first-person protagonist, in a spat with Mom on Mom’s 30th birthday, wishes her dead. Mom’s demise that night defines the eight-year-old girl. She will express no love, no affection. She will listen only, go along. She embraces de [...]

Oh. My. God. This book. It was never ending! The style of the writing was dull. Yes, some of it did have a poetic twist about it, but really? It was depressing. That's pretty much all that can be said for it - the author can force the reader into depression. When I read the main character's emotions, I actually felt like I was on a down spiral. Yes, that's a good skill. But Alice Hoffman doesn't stop! It is all misery. Not just understandable misery, either. Misery about the stupidest, childish [...]

This is one of those books which creep up on you unawares. I had finished it months ago but it was only as I finally rejoined the GR reviewers and sat down to write this that I realized it was still reverberating gently in my mind.It is a love story but not a straightforward one. There is an underlying theme of the need to come to terms with bitterness and self hatred. There is the recognition that gradually dawns for characters and readers alike as to how misunderstanding, misrepresentation and [...]

I think we've all been asked a thousand times about our favorite books. I've always found it hard to answer and so I would mention my favorite authors instead. But then I found this book. I don't really know what happened I think it was love at first sight. This is one of those books in which every single word matters. I know that's supposed to happen in every single novel but this book is different each word is a precious piece in the brilliantly built puzzle that is this story. The emotions, s [...]

4.4 starsThis book ripped my heart out then threw it against the wall only to pick it up, stomp and kick at it with steel toed boots.In the misery, the bleakness and the dark hole that became my chest there was a light weak but bright. The author was able to keep me focused on that little light, it wasn't hope of a HEA it was much deeper it was the spark of life to breath to continue. Her words are beautifully sewn together, visual and emotionally charged.Depressing stories are my kryptonite nor [...]

Exquisite, I really love Alice Hoffman's writing, all that magic, beauty and love she puts into it makes it something to savor. We have to deal with a significant amount of pain in this one as well, as a little girl who is burdened with the guilt of believing that she has caused her mother's death begins the process of learning to feel again through the cataclysmic event of getting hit by lightening when she is an adult. Weather often plays a large part of Alice Hoffman's stories, it really is a [...]

When I worked in publishing, I would often read books just out of curiosity about what the author's style was like, or what drew their fans in. One author I was familiar with, but never read, was Alice Hoffman. I recently read The Ice Queen, which is about a librarian, so hey, why not.The protagonist loses her mother at age 8, for which she blames herself. She grows up into a sort of nonperson, with no friends, only a lover whom she keeps at arm's length. After the death of their grandmother, he [...]

This book made me realise that I do believe in magic as a real thing. The "magical realism" part of it didn't seem fictional to me. Hoffman intersperses a lot of philosophical musings about self-identity and value throughout this story. It's a reflection of the fairy tales she references in the book, full of a melancholy darkness that ends well despite the cost. It's the journey of someone who thinks she did something unforgivable to her self-acceptance upon realising that she can't control ever [...]

If I could, I'd give this a firm 3 & 1/2 stars because I'm not sure I loved it but I more than liked it. I like/love most of her books. I like fairy tales and this book was full of fairy tale references - the story itself is really a fairy tale. It is short and it is a quick read. I had great trouble warming to most of the main characters but this was meant to be. The last pages made me cry because, in the end, I really felt for those same characters. Any book that elicits tears deserves, I' [...]

If you too are slogging through this and think the author may be just a wee bit too enamored with her love for metaphor and symbols, and you think the main character is not sympathetic, but kind of a pitiable loser, then you're thinking as I did through almost the first 3/4 of this wonderful and touching novel. I write the above because if you're tempted to abandon the book before you get to the end (as I did), you'll be cheating yourself out of an amazing, meaningful, and completely touching pe [...]

"Be careful what you wish for. I know that for a fact. Wishes are brutal, unforgiving things. They burn your tongue the moment they're spoken and you can never take them back. They bruise and bake and come back to haunt you……."I read 'The Ice Queen' by Alice Hoffman years ago but recently I stumbled across the audio version and decided to listen. I really liked reading the book but listening to this audiobook narrated by Nancy Travis was a whole different experience… different in a good wa [...]

How does one go from giving three stars to a Booker prize winner to giving this inconsequential book a four star rating? First, tell a story well. Second, describe everything vividly and throw in a little wisdom. Third, be the kind of book one is looking for. I was looking for a page-turning escape and I got it. Being the bearer of two “I wish you’d die” wishes coming true, the nameless narrator grows up fearful of and fascinated by death, obtaining knowledge that is tapped into by a local [...]

I just read this really great book by Alice Hoffman. It's titled The Ice Queen.From the get-go I was hooked. Hoffman has the knack for creating a narrative that is compelling. The main character, who remains nameless through the whole book, is a woman obsessed with death. As a young girl, she gets mad at her mom as she is driving away. In a moment of fury, she wishes her mom dead. It is the dead of winter and the next day, the young girl wakes up to find that her mom was killed in a car accident [...]

This is one of the most depressing books I've ever read. It is also one of the best. Before I stumbled on this at my local used book shop, I'd never read Alice Hoffman. After I read the last page, with tears streaming down my face, I knew I would read every bit of her work. Her writing style is lovely, simply structured yet poetic and deeply insightful.This story is depressing, but also uplifting. It is dark, and yet there is light to be seen everywhere, if you remember to look for it. It is cha [...]

Audiobook.Oh my gosh! First of all I've liked the narrator/actress Nancy Travis on TV and in the few movies I've seen her in but I have never realized what a great actress she is. The bitterness, hurt, love, yearning, etc all come across so wonderfully. I am for sure going to listen to more of her audiobooks and definitely watch more of her movies. I'll have to do a search for her works and I'm probably going to be pleasantly surprised by all of the movies she's done.Now for the book. Great! A l [...]

What an unusual love story!! And what lovely words used to tell it. This book wasn’t anything like what I expected it to be. I was greatly misled by the cover, which said to me — “typical fairytale romance, likely Harlequin style.” But Hoffman is much more sophisticated than that and has a wealth of imagination and wondrously beautiful ideas. I literally devoured the book (and I should have been STUDYING, damnit! LOL!). Only two very minor complaints that pulled this down from a perfect [...]

The Ice Queen opens on a common domestic scenario, in which an eight year old, furious because her mother is going out for the evening, petulantly wishes she'd never see her again. Of course, wishing can't make it so, but this little girl, an avid reader of fairy tales, believes it can. Her mother's car skidded on ice, and heavily burdened with guilt, the child freezes herself emotionally, growing up a social isolate obsessed with reading and death. Years later, when she idly wishes she'd be str [...]

Frozen in misery since age eight, when the mother she wished would disappear promptly obliged by dying in a car wreck, the thirtysomething unnamed narrator of Hoffman's hypnotic new novel has spent her life avoiding meaningful human contact. As a New Jersey reference librarian, she relentlessly pursues the details of death in all its countless causes while engaging in after-hours backseat trysting with a local cop. After settling near her brother in Florida, the narrator is struck by lightning. [...]

I was feeling very ambivalent and having trouble connecting with any of the characters in this story. Then came Ned's "Chaos Theory in Fairy Tales" -- and the entire story fell into place for me!Told in 1st person, it's a kind of fairy tale in reverse -- or a deconstructed fairy tale. I think one of the reasons I was not connecting is that throughout the story, anytime there would be a seemingly magical moment, it was explained away by the completely rational physical reactions of her condition. [...]

I was really intrigued by the summary on the back of the book, and therefore went into it expecting to thoroughly enjoy it but it fell short. It started off okay but by the 100 page mark I found myself wanting to skim read, and not really caring about anything the main character was talking about or doing. The main character's relationship with Lazarus was a bit strange and I didn't understand why she felt so drawn to him. 2 stars.

Actual rating: 4.5 stars I thought this book would be my first five ⭐️ novel of the year but unfortunately it lost half a star 😭I cannot get over how stunningly written this book was. It read like poetry and felt like warm honey in my mouth. I must warn y'all that whilst this book is brilliant it is very depressing! But I kinda think that is what makes it so magnificent and truly unlike anything I have ever read before. So why lose the half star? I think the ending felt kinda rushed to me [...]

3.5 I read some of the reviews and I agree with the likes and dislikes. Overall it was interesting and good. Was a bit repetitive and I skimmed a few pages but I like the authors way of seeing things. It was an unexpected love story.

Here on Earth is still my favorite Alice Hoffman novel. With Hoffman, it's pretty much hit-or-miss but I never hesitate to pick up her books because of her lovely prose. She writes metaphors so well and is able to make the most squalid things seem magical. This story opens with a selfish little girl who lays a curse on her mother and is forever tortured when her mother dies soon after. She then lives a half-life as a librarian preoccupied with death and fairytales. One day, she wishes herself to [...]

I loathed this book. According to a snippet from a "Times" review on the front cover, it is meant to be a wonderfully erotic love story. It is neither erotic nor a wonderful love story as far as I'm concerned ! The main character is a bitter and twisted librarian. She has good reasons for being bitter and twisted. That I don't mind. However her main love interest, Lazarus Jones, is so thinly drawn, that I had zilch interest in the love story.The story is part fantasy (a fairy tale), which would [...]

This is a book that the author wrote about 7 years ago, given to me by a friend. I have become enamored with Alice Hoffman after neglecting her books for years (I think her last two books were both exceptional). This one is essentially a modern day fairy tale, and it teeters on the fantastical throughout though deals with the very heart of human emotions. At times I had decided I would give this book only 4 stars, but Ms. Hoffman wraps it up so superbly that I decided on adding that ultimate sta [...]

It's Alice Hoffman. Therefore it is almost impossible to rate this book less than four stars. But I'll warn you: It's one of her more depressing novels. Alice Hoffman loves to drag her characters through beautiful and magical mud before she gives them their happy ending, and so it is with this book. However, the uplifting ending is bittersweet and extremely short, with the majority of the book dedicated to metallic buzzing headaches, color-blindness, and the after-effects of both a dead mother, [...]